Blog

Under the sea: How a dive to the seafloor can help students unlock Earth’s past

Seafloor spreading modeled in TecRocks Explorer

Stephanie Seevers is an Earth science teacher in Colorado and a consultant on the TecRocks project. I was talking to my 9th grade Earth and Space Science students recently about why they think so many people lack a solid understanding of our planet and its history. We brainstormed ideas, and while several theories sounded valid, […]

Continue reading

Rocks and plate tectonics reimagined

TecRocks data table

Across the Earth, rock is being created, destroyed, and transformed all the time. If you were to witness a volcanic eruption up close, you would see the birth of new rock. While such an eruption results in a dramatic display of Earth’s power, many rock-forming processes are invisible as they take place deep beneath Earth’s […]

Continue reading

A rocky road to curiosity

TecRocks Explorer

Ambitious Science Teaching now includes a focus on equity and reaching diverse student populations. One principle of the Critical and Cultural Approaches to Ambitious Science Teaching (C2-AST) framework (Thompson et al., 2021) is to situate learning around phenomena that prioritizes students’ communities and cultures, their local environment, and daily experience. While this can be a […]

Continue reading

16 Publications STEM Teachers and Researchers Should Read

We published a record number of publications in 2022, including 15 journal articles and a book chapter. From articles for educators to implement free resources to research articles to inform the field, we wrote about a wide range of topics, including data science education, artificial intelligence, geoscience education, game-based learning, and more. Most of the […]

Continue reading